Welcome to the Hog Blog, a blog chronicling minor-league baseball in the Lehigh Valley. Tom Housenick, The Morning Call's IronPigs beat writer, has been at The Morning Call since 2008. In a previous lifetime, he was at Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic talking with future Phillies Jimmy Rollins, Pat Burrell, Shane Victorino and Ryan Howard, among many others.
He’ll now be spending his summers in search of who the Phillies are hoping to be the next Chase Utley and Cole Hamels plus any outfielder who catch and hit. What he really hopes to find are the next Mariano Rivera, Todd Helton and Jim Thome --- great human beings who happened to be great at this sport.
He spent the last five years covering Colonial League football, college basketball and high school track & field.

Over the IronPigs' first 27 games, John Suomi's name was in the starting lineup just four times, and the 31-year-old back-up catcher had just 16 at-bats.

Over the next 27, Suomi started nine times and had 39 at-bats.

Suomi believes there's a direct connection between those stats and his decision not to "pie" manager Ryne Sandberg during a post-game TV interview early in the month.

"I think me not pieing him attributes to my playing time right now," Suomi deadpanned.

Or, more likely, it's because he hit .385 in those 39 at-bats, with six doubles, two homers and eight RBIs, including a sizzling series this week in Gwinnett.

"He's hard to keep out of the line-up right now," manager Ryne Sandberg said before Friday night's game with Pawtucket at Coca-Cola Park was postponed by rain.

The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader Saturday night beginning at 5:35 p.m.

After not playing at all during the four-game series at Charlotte to begin the southern road trip, Suomi teed off on the Braves, hitting .571 (8-for-14) with four doubles, two homers, seven RBIs and five runs scored in three games.

"He actually carried us for a couple of those games," Sandberg said. "He made a lot of contact and when he did, he used the whole field."

Overall he hit safely in eight of nine starts during the month, and if you throw out his pinch-hit appearances (0-for-5), Suomi hit .441 in May (15-for-34).

"It's just getting consistent playing time," said Suomi, who has started five games behind the plate, three at first and one as the designated hitter.

Suomi was a triple shy of the cycle Monday night, knocking in three runs. After a day on the bench, he had a pair of doubles and scored twice in Wednesday's 6-3 win, then had a double and a homer with four RBIs in Thursday's 14-4 drubbing of the Braves.

That gives him multi-hit games in all five of the games he's played at Gwinnett's Coolray Field, where he's a lifetime .545 hitter (12-for-22) with a 1.000 slugging percentage.

"The batter's eye is phenomenal," Suomi said, referring to the hitting background in center field. "It's huge, it's dark. think it'd be nice to have a bigger batter's eye here. It's tough here sometimes -- there's lights in the background, glare to deal with. So it's just a great place to hit."

Suomi is also hitting .519 (14-for-27) with five doubles, two homers and eight RBIs in seven games when he's hit fourth or fifth in Sandberg's line-up -- he was fourth in Friday's line-up as the DH. He's hitting .143 (4-for-28) in all other spots in the line-up.

""It's a little different approach, but I'm getting the playing time now, so it really doesn't matter to me where I'm in there in the order," Suomi said. "As long as I'm in there, one-through-nine, it doesn't matter."

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The IronPigs begin June again leading the International League and minor league baseball in attendance, averaging 8,570 fans a game.

But that's the team's lowest per-game average through the end of May since their first season. Their averages through May in the first four seasons was 8,790 (2011); 8,750 (2010), 8,581 (2010); and 7,349 (2008).

However, the average is the third-highest after the first 24 home dates, trailing 2010 (8,717) and 2011 (8,690).

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What appeared to be a disastrous road trip turned out to be just painful after the IronPigs recovered from six straight losses to take the last two games in Gwinnett.

"To win the last two really changed the feeling of the road trip coming home," Sandberg said.

Lehigh Valley hit only .230 and scored nine runs during their four-game series with Charlotte (they lost all four).

But the IronPigs hit .299 and averaged seven runs a game in splitting the series with the Southern Division-leading Braves. They scored 20 runs and hit .311 while winning the last two games.

"The guys bounced back," Sandberg said. "We got off to a rough start -- we didn't execute in close game-type of situations, and that cost us some games. But the guys showed some character and bounced back those last two games, well-pitched games and the bats came alive."

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Struggling right hander Austin Hyatt was sent back down to Reading after his start last Sunday in Charlotte, when he dropped his sixth straight decision after winning his first two decisions.

Hyatt had a 3.09 ERA through his first six starts but has lost his last four starts, giving up 27 hits and 20 earned runs in 19 innings as his ERA ballooned to 5.47.

"He's going down to work on some things," Sandberg said. "He was trying to develop and work on a lot of things from day one here. Some of it was his pitches, some of it was his pitch selection, some of it was working on holding the runners, being quicker to home plate, and that's a lot of things to work on, and it's tough to work on all that on this level."

Hyatt was 12-6 with a 3.85 ERA last year at Reading, leading the Eastern League in wins, starts (28), strikeouts (171) and innings pitched (154 1/3).

"He was very receptive to going back there and work on things and I anticipate seeing him back here sometime this year," Sandberg said.